


seeing the same film again

by yunnings (ladylolli)



Series: free! mer!AU collection [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood, M/M, Mer!AU, Mer!Rin, Middle School, Multi, Slow Build, angst/pain/hurt, mer!Haru, mer!mako
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-07-29 08:09:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7676779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladylolli/pseuds/yunnings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>"I mean the mer and him." Rin interrupts, looks away from Makoto in their classroom to Haru. "You can hear them, can't you? The mer.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>They're always calling. Your name. Mine. And," Ruby orbs bore into his, "Makoto's. What's up with that?"</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> that mainfic to the (as of now) 8 months old [sidefic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5572741)
> 
> unbeta'd

Shoals of fish. Ocean blue. Fins. Contorting his body, Haru touched them. Scales. Bluer than the ocean, but gleaming bright.

A reflection of the sunlight turned attention onto his arms; hands. Paler than the sand, white. Whiter under the bouncing light. And his hands! Webs. Stretch and flex, stretch and flex. A powerful kick from his tail fin–

"Haru!"

And he's tumbling onto the floor.

–

"What were you doing?" Makoto groused. Fidgety hands interlinking and breaking apart. He should be doing _something_. Haru flipped the grilling salmon. Poured barbecue sauce over it. Oil jumped from the fire. Just like how he shot up, with a simple kick of his tail fins. He remembered. "Swimming."

"That's just like you, Haru-chan." Haru can hear the resigned mirth, even as he prepares to bring the food over to the dining table. Cuts the fish easily with his chopsticks. The salmon wields, like the seabed cracking for a volcano. There's the scrape of chair on wooden floor as Makoto gets up, "It'll almost be warm again, Haru. Just a bit longer."

Just a bit longer till he can swim. Not soak in the small bathtub. He bit into the fish, "Mm."

"I'll be waiting outside, okay?"

–

They travel to middle school, as always. The white cat pads after Makoto, sakura petals sway with the wind and dots the ground. Haru sees this, but focuses more on the river. Silky rivulets, sparkling under the sunlight, heading as straight and swift as an arrow. He'll like to break them with butterfly strokes. Split and be absorbed, and carried faster by the currents.

Past the bridge and embankment is the ocean. Vast, blue, endless. It's singing to him: lulling waves riddled with crescendos and decrescendos, and the tinkling prompts below the surface.

Maybe he won't wait till it's warmer.

–

_Haru doesn't remember the turning. Dive. Swim. Deeper, deeper, deeper. Somewhere along the dive, breathing turns easy. Bubbles doesn't leave his mouth like dying breaths, aren't what he hears 30 feet under surface. Silence._

_Haru swims and swims, aided by his blue webs and fins. Easy. Fast. Powerful. He swims and swims and swims, welcomes the water._

_Before light breaks, Haru surfaces. Heading for the shore, fin frays into legs. Fit for walking on land, inefficient in the sea. Reluctance and regrets slides off his body like the roiling seawater._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's only ONE day late but I was busy. OLYMPIC GOLD PEOPLE. FINALLY!!! WOOP ahem
> 
> unbeta'd

"Haru?" The door slides and knocks against the frames as Makoto opens the bathroom door. "You'll be late." Makoto tells him, voice devoid of appropriate concern for their punctuality. There's a gentle smile on his face.

Haru slides out the bath when Makoto heads down, and remembers that Makoto don't know.

"Grilled salmon today too?" Makoto's voice drifts up.

About the mer.

"Yeah."

–

There's a transfer student today, but Haru can't hear his introduction over the fuzz. The sea is noisy. Sea glass shards click. The sea floor groans. Haru rubs his temples.

"'em too."

Shadow. Nautical stripes. Haru looks up to a face. The transfer student, Matsuoka Rin.

Haru reluctantly asks, "What?" Takes note of the empty seat behind him. _I've no intentions of making friends though._  He tugs his facial muscles down and stares blankly at the open notebook.

The boy grins and signals between the sea and his ears as he walks around, whispers at the bend before sitting, "So you can hear them too."

He whips back to the transfer student's smug grin.

"Nanami!" Their teacher raps his knuckles against the chalkboard, "Pay attention!"

–

Haru thought of staying away, but the sea calls to him. Come here, the waves say, join us.

He's skirting the 39 feet limit, when legs knead into a merman's tail fin and his breathing eases, when he recalls the transfer student.

There's no noise down below. So Haru quickly forgets, and swims around the shadowy circumference of the moon. A vague remembrance crept up. Moon drop. Drinking under the moon. Tsukimi. A sip of moonlight. Flashes of his father's eyes, moon-glowed, hands clutching a bottle of rice wine. Can he get drunk from this? Haru flicks his tongue out and tastes.

Occasionally, lone bluefins cross his head. Under the moonlight, they look like halos beneath his head.

–

Transfer student joined them at the bridge. Talked to Haru in between classes. Ate with them by the pool flaked sakura pink. Haru can smell the chlorine, and further away, tangy salt water. It's different–

"What is?" Makoto puts the chopsticks down, politely asks. Matsuoka raises his eyebrows, but didn't stop chewing. White rice peeks out beneath his teeth.

"The smell above and beneath the sea."

"Well, of course it is!" Rin thunders, louder than Makoto's disapproval of swimming in the chill. His chopsticks clatter haphazardly against the bento box. "It's like smelling air down there. Scentless."

Makes sense. "Tasteless." The sea was tasteless when he tried the night before. Haru digs into his food.

"The food?" Makoto's furrowing his eyebrows. Confusion. Haru looks away, towards the sea. Rin grins smugly, shark-like teeth peeking.

Rin and Haru answered at the same time, "The sea."

They wore different expressions under the sakura tree by the pool: confusion, moroseness, and excitement.

–

Haru saw an inkling of reds even before he turned. Rin swam over. "So yours are blue." Matsuoka observed, "Pretty." There's an upwards curve on his lips.

Haru doesn't know what to say. _I figured yours out before seeing yours_  sound wrong. He kicks his fin, swims within reflected moonlight as if it's a fish bowl. It'll be easier with Makoto around.

"Yours are red," Haru finally returns, slows his frolicking because he is hesitant. How will Matsuoka take his comment? He is not used to conversation unless they're conversation with Makoto. Makoto _gets_  him without words needing to be exchanged. Haru crosses his arms, hiding gooseflesh from Rin's inquisitive eyes.

His skin gleams white under the light. In that moment, Rin saw less of Haru's ethereality and more of his fragility. "Thanks." There's a toothy grin on his features."You know," Rin smirks, "You're so upside-down."

Haru stares, pauses his frolicking to sway with the lazy current.

Rin turns away. He stares at the moonlight, arms crossed behind his head. "You're so otherworldly above, but so...," Red eyes flash on Haru's, "Human down here."

The fishes swim the arc around them, avoiding the spotlight with them cast as the main leading players.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so much for updating every friday /shrugs
> 
> unbeta'd

_"I tolerate him," Haru corrects._

_Makoto was strolling along behind him, wearing an indulgent smile. "Okay." Dimples shaped his face._

_Exasperating._

_Matsuoka had took the other way. Made a dash back home and shouted something about his sister. Haru hardly reacted. Makoto waved._

_Left. Deviation from their usual route home._

_"Wait up!" Thundering footsteps on gravel and soil. Makoto hurries to catch up. "Haru!"_

_He doesn't stop. The waves are calling them. Them – Haru and Makoto. Haru hears delighted tinkling on crescendos before the thundering comes to a stop. Haru pictures webbed mer fingers playing with sea glass. They tinkle like wind chimes underwater. "Haru, let's stop."_

_Haru pauses. Not yet. "The shallow pools." At least until there. Haru continues trudging on sand, dares not look to see if his friend is following. He hopes Makoto is. Wishes for it as strongly as the tide swells and ebbs to the moon's phases._

_Another pair of footsteps. Makoto's. Though he's meters in front, Haru feels steps behind Makoto instead._

⏩

_Haru remembers asking, "Do you hear them?" Them – the mer, the sea. Do you hear them anymore, Makoto? Haru faces the sea, watches the rise and falling waves, foam, and shadows beneath the sea. They keep calling you. Calling, prompting, begging. The sounds grow weaker._

_"I probably can't hear them anymore soon," Haru admits, staring straight into Makoto's green eyes. Pain wrenches his heart, chokes the air from his lungs and flashes panic in his eyes. Haru_ realises _._

⏩

_He's diving. Swimming deeper and deeper: 5 feet, 10 feet, 15 feet, 20 feet,... Makoto is struggling to catch him, save him - Haruka does not know - but he pretends not to see. Plunges deeper._

_He had panicked. He is selfish. He can't - Haru chokes a little, blinking back tears that melds seamlessly with seawater - he can't give up the sea for his friend. He does not want to, but Haru knows he will. Reject the sea, give up being mer to stay with Makoto._

_He just need to keep swimming to turn. Legs into a lone tail, gills to breath underwater. Haru sees air bubbles. White outlines on blue. Whose? His? Makoto's? He tries to speak ("Please not Makoto"), chokes on water. The bubbles obscure his vision instead._

_The rising panic burst along with exhaled bubbles._

Haru woke with heavy breathing. His dreams were always realistic. He talked better. He does things he want to. He fails at the things he want to do.

Haru lets out a drawn out exhalation.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~ditch this fic?~~
> 
> unbeta'd

These are things Haru realises he wants to do:

  * Swim (and as an extension, being mer)
  * Bring Makoto back with him



These are things Haru can't do:

  * Bring Makoto back with him while being mer



Not ever since the shipwreck with Makoto's dad on board.

For once, Haru turned away from the sea and looked at Makoto. Guilt lingers heavily on his stomach. Churns and settles like disgusting, polluting tar he sees once during a class on pollution.

"You're not looking at the ocean today," Makoto notes, "What's wrong?"

Haru shakes his head. The sea had gone quiet, reflecting his moroseness with weak ebbs and drawn out flows.

"It's warm today," Makoto chatters amicably by his side, changing the topic, "We'll be able to swim today."

They're at the traffic crossing. Blinking green. Rhythmic alarm.

'We', Makoto had said. They can swim together again. Pedestrians started walking. Haru feels a teensy bit of hope as he squeezes Makoto's hand, "Yeah." They cross zebra stripes hand in hand.

–

Haru doesn't tell Rin things, and Rin openly shares trivial things but omits important, personal things. They aren't friends, as dream-Makoto had assumed the night before. Makoto waves to them from the 6th years' classroom next door. They wave back.

"What," Rin starts, "is Makoto's problem?"

Makoto's back is turned to them, even when he is in the classroom a corridor away.

Haru bristles. Looks angrily at Rin's side-turned face. "There's nothing wrong with Mako-"

 _Oh shit._  That came out wrong. "I mean the mer and him." Rin backtracks, hurriedly looking away from Makoto in their classroom to Haru. "You can hear them, can't you? The mer.

They're always calling. Your name. Mine. And," Ruby orbs bore into his, "Makoto's. What's up with that?"

Haru clams up. Stubbornly looks away.

When Makoto makes his way over for lunch, bento in hand, Haru scowls. "...ere's nothing wrong with Makoto."

Haru knows he needs to do something. To bring Makoto back. To calm the sea. Before their voices fade, as his nightmare had hinted at, before the mer relinquish their hold on both of them because they know Haruka will stay with Makoto as faithfully as Makoto had for Haru.

But he doesn't know what to do. So he procrastinates. Dips under the water, dives deeper and deeper until legs to knit into a tail, and swims in circles admiring the moon.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave kudos and comments-which-I'll-never-reply-to! (pls?) ~~does anyone even read these ahaha~~
> 
> unbeta'd

_Cicadas sing. Occasional breeze making passes at wind chimes; they twitter melodically in response._

_Saccharine sweet incense hung in Haru's mother's room. Actually, Haruka realises bitterly, it's in the whole house. He can't travel anywhere without the smell reminding him that_ mum died _._

_"I'm going to find mum," Haru declared, jaws set and eyes flashing. Red-rimmed. Anger and determination shone through them. His face were still wet with tear trails. Makoto looked at the wood-crafted photo frame. A candid photo of Haru's mum, laughing, carefree. "She's not dead!" Haru yells angrily, catching Makoto looking at the stupid photograph. Fresh tears threaten to spill. Haruka rubs them away angrily._

_Makoto kept quiet. Cicadas' hymns fill their room._

_"I know she isn't." Haru muttered, amidst cicadas' singing that sound like shrill screams from the reincarnated._

_–_

_Nights were cooler. Quieter: fireflies glow active, cicadas creep back to sleep. There's celebration on the shores, but the air around them is tense. "Where are we going?" Sand crunched beneath Makoto's sandaled foot. He runs to catch up, leaving the noise of summer festivities behind._

_Makoto knows where they are. Here was where Haru's mum was last seen. The yellow police tape was stripped away. No flashing red and blue lights from police cars in sight. No stiff uniformed men in shades and gun holsters stalking around anymore. The police had combed everything and everywhere to find nothing. Although the beach has been returned to before, Makoto still gets gooseflesh recalling the scene. He edges closer to Haru, "How will you find auntie here?"_

_The sand shifts when Haru grounds his feet to a pause. His hand reaches out for Makoto's, trembling. Makoto squeezes back tight. "I don't know." He looks to the sea. "But maybe I'll find something. I'll know what mum is doing if I do as she did."_

_Haru unlatches their hands. He wades in and dives. Makoto follows._

_–_

_"This is..." Makoto trails away. Flicks the tail and tests his webbed hands – are these his? Yes, they're attached to his body. Touches scales and filmy web; feels sensation instead. Nerves are connected, Makoto marvels._

_Haru swims in figure 8s, weaves in and out of Makoto._

_He doesn't speak to Makoto till dawn. With seawater slipping off their back, Haru whispers. Devoid of prior emotions. "Mum isn't dead." Haru doesn't gloat. He's stating a fact._

_Makoto doesn't note the lack of passion on his friend's countenance, doesn't note the woodenness as Haruka said, "Mum turned into mer." Doesn't understand his friend's hollowness. There's wool in his head, and Makoto follows Haru quietly behind._

_They don't talk of the sea, of legs turning into fins and hands growing webbed. Of Haru's mother's being mer. Roiling clouds darken; sand blurring into murky clouds in the water as the skies open._

_Apprehension shoots into Makoto's eyes when the sea calls them. He eyes Haru. Haru turns away from the sea, trudging up to the shore. Already, he misses cool water on human skin, now itching with quotidian worries and expectations. Haru can relate why; why mum would choose to abandon land and humans for sea and mer._

_–_

_Haru reaches home to a throbbing headache worsened by the sickening sweet incense. He waves Makoto and his worries away. "Go home," He tells Makoto. As he turns away, Haru recalls his mother's back. In a brief moment of fright, he grabs onto Makoto's arms. Choked out, "Stay." Lucid in a moment not absorbed by his self-centredness, he notes his friend's exhaustion and lost expression, "Please."_

_He sleeps and dream nightmares of mum abandoning him._

_He wakes up tangled with the sheets, tears falling. Haru sniffs and smells nothing. His nose has habituated to the smell of incense when Haru realises. It's not imagination that his mother left._

_Mum_ had _abandoned him._

_Makoto's eyes flutter awake, "What's wrong?" He breathes. Makoto's heart follows a hummingbird's beat. He sidles closer, afraid for Haruka._

_Burning. Haru's having a fever. He moves to stand when Haru blubbers delirious, "Mum's abandoned us, abandoned..." His voice cracks, "Me."_

_He sits back down. "What do you mean?"_

_Haru goes silent. "We don't know that," Makoto futilely attempts to wipe beaded sweat away, "We only know she's a mer not..."_

_He recalls the blank expression and wooden tone hours ago by the beach. "Let's not jump to conclusions." Makoto says firmly. He stands, forces an encouraging smile, "Let's not give up finding auntie, okay?"_


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally watched free!es ~~halfway~~ so pls turn a blind eye to ooc /sobs
> 
> unbeta'd

Spring paves way to summer. Influx of tourists, taking up boarding houses and crowding the beach. Excited shrieks during the day and drunken singing at night serves as background noise.

Haru spends entire days 39 feet beneath the shrieks and drunk singing, occasionally returning to land because of Makoto.

"Where were you?" Haru keeps the keys, slides the door open. Makoto enters with hushed gratitude for the entry after Haruka steps into the threshold.

"Swimming." Since summer vacation started, actually. He strips out of spandex and into dry clothes. Haru can hear the stick of the refrigerator's door seals. Watermelons. Makoto brought them. They'll eat those on the porch after lunch. He rounds the corner into the kitchen, Makoto's back was to him. _Do you want to swim?_  stays stuck in his throat. Haru slumps against the wall, rigid. It's too cruel to ask. Haru sits leaden while waiting for Makoto to serve lunch.

Makoto had supported him wholeheartedly throughout his futile search for mum. He can't force Makoto to relive his own terrors when he's not ready. He stares grimly at the steamed sea bass.

"What's wrong?" Makoto peers into his cheerless expression, worried furrows and down-turned lips, "Not to your taste?" It's still fish but Haru might not like this particular fish, Makoto shifts.

Haru raises his eyebrows in challenge and digs in. His friend relaxes and starts on his share of fish. Between mouthfuls of fish, Haru mumbles quietly, "...I like all fish."

–

6 evenly-cut slices of watermelons. Haru knew they'll eat them. He takes in the refraction of sunlight on water; here, far from the sand and pulling waves, they shine like messy clumps of glitter in the galaxy jars Makoto, Rin and him had made during Art and Crafts class.

"Rin went overseas." The watermelon Makoto eats crunches, juice sliding down the junction between 2 knuckles.

Haru shrugs. "Apparently to Australia to check out... swimming schools?" Makoto continues on, unsure as he updates Haruka. Haru pauses biting into his slice to stare at his friend. At least Makoto knows something. Haru didn't know anything. Makoto really is the glue keeping their friendship. "What about you?"

"Swim." He always does that. Haruka bites into the watermelon slice contemplatively, "I don't know."

He recalls the unsaid question back in the kitchen. _Do you want to swim?_  "What about you?" He throws the question back.

"Maybe not swim alone," Makoto puts down the green crust and looks uneasily at him. "Summer is the time for storms."

Haru's stomach churns. Right: Makoto's fisherman father. Haru doesn't think about his mother's disappearance many summers ago as much after Mako's father's death. Without Makoto's support, Haru can't find the courage to search without tearing himself apart at every empty lead.

_Do you remember_ , Haru wants to ask, /that summer we swam and turned?/ He drops his half-finished slice instead. "Okay."

Breath and _Say it_.

"Makoto," Haru licks his lips, asks tentatively, "Do you want to swim again? In the ocean. Together." His hands were sticky with watermelon juice and pulp.

The uneasy smile clashes with Makoto's trusting eyes. "Okay," Makoto agrees. Haru doesn't breathe easier. But his eyes glimmer with hope. It's a start.


End file.
